Wednesday, January 08, 2014

Blind dog back home after being rescued from bay by police boat

A blind dog named Frankie is back with his family after he was found swimming in Biscayne Bay, Miami. A Marine Patrol officer rescued him on Monday morning. Johanne Poirier spotted the little dog swimming from her home in the Venetian Islands. She and her husband tried to coax him onto shore.

“He went on the boat and called the dog ‘come here, come here’ trying to get the dog. Finally he grabbed the dog on the boat,” Poirier said. No sooner had they get the dog onto their boat, Frankie, a 12-year-old chihuahua-cocker spaniel mix, jumped back into the water and started swimming away again. “I called the police,” said Poirier, “I was worried.”

Miami Beach Marine Patrol Officer Vicente Canete came to the rescue. “The dog was pretty much swimming 100 yards east of De Lido Island,” Canete explained, adding, “I approached the dog slowly, I didn’t want to spook it away, and it immediately came swimming to the boat so it made it easy for me to lean over the boat and grab it and retrieve it from the water.”

Canete says he was surprised to learn later Frankie is blind. “When he swam to the boat I thought he swam because he saw me but that wasn’t the case. He was blind,” said Canete After finding a microchip, Frankie was reunited with his owners Melissa and Jeremiah Heffron, much to the relief of everyone who helped save him. “He was so cute and a nice dog. You could see he’s from a good family,” said Poirier.